Arkham has published a public on-chain map linking two TRC-20 wallets on Tron to Iran’s central bank, placing both addresses on an entity page available for public tracking. In its research note released on May 11, the blockchain intelligence platform said the listing gives researchers and analysts a starting point to follow related wallets and fund movements. The U.S. Treasury had previously said the action froze roughly $344 million in crypto assets tied to Iran.
Two OFAC-sanctioned Tron addresses moved into public view
The two wallets were added to the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, Specially Designated Nationals list on April 24. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said at the time that the move was designed to “systematically degrade Tehran’s ability to use digital assets for illicit finance.” Arkham has now grouped the addresses under an “Iran Central Bank” entity page, making their transaction history openly visible.
That changes how the addresses can be monitored. Instead of remaining isolated wallet identifiers, they now sit inside a labeled on-chain cluster that outside investigators can use to trace counterparties, linked addresses, and later transfers. Once an address is publicly tagged, every movement around it draws more scrutiny from compliance teams and blockchain researchers.
Stablecoin routes remain central to sanctions evasion concerns
Chainalysis said in an April 27 report that Iran has been using a multi-step stablecoin pipeline to bypass international sanctions. The process described in the report starts with brokers converting fiat into stablecoins, then moves funds through intermediary wallets, cross-chain bridges, and DeFi protocols to obscure the source of the assets. The sequence points to the same issue regulators have been watching for months: stablecoins and multi-chain infrastructure can make fund transfers harder to trace in real time.
The report also noted that Iran’s largest crypto exchange, Nobitex, was reported in May to have links to family members close to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. It has been described as a key channel connecting domestic users with overseas markets. That puts exchanges, wallet clusters, and stablecoin transfers in the same frame as sanctions enforcement.
USDT freezes on Tron draw added attention
Over the same 30-day period, Tether froze more than 500 million USDT across Ethereum and Tron, with about $506 million of that figure occurring on Tron. A Tron spokesperson said the network itself cannot monitor or block individual transactions, while pointing to the T3 Financial Crime Unit, a joint effort by Tron, Tether, and TRM Labs, as an active mechanism targeting illicit activity.
Separate estimates from TRM Labs and Chainalysis put Iran’s annual cryptocurrency transaction volume between $4.2 billion and $12 billion. As U.S. sanctions enforcement tightens, exchanges including Binance have also been asked to freeze accounts linked to Iran in line with OFAC requirements.